Ray's Quintet Music

I have been arranging music for wind quintet for some years.

I have arranged a mixture of classical, romantic and modern composers

My classical arrangements of Mozart,Beethoven etc. may differ from other people's wind quintet arrangements.

Neither Mozart nor Beethoven wrote a quintet with the instrumentation that we have today.

Their music was written in general for sextet or octet.

It was Anton Reicha's twenty-four quintets, begun in 1811, and the nine quintets of Franz Danzi that established the genre, and their pieces are still standards of the repertoire. 

I am a horn player and made the decision to write the horn parts,as far as possible, as Mozart or Beethoven would have written them.(in their sextets/octets etc)

So, the horn parts are written in the key of the piece Eb,G,D,C or whatever, and as far as possible I limit the notes to that of the natural horn (i.e. no valves).

In my opinion this gives a more authentic sound to the music.

Of course, sometimes, if the music needs  a particular tenor part/melody or harmony, I will write it for horn. BUT AS FAR AS POSSIBLE, I write for natural horn.

I also provide F horn parts for those players who can't/won't transpose.

I have also noticed that arrangements by other people have the horn player playing fast moving passages in the lower octave.This is difficult to play,doesn't sound very good and doesn't carry!!
Far better to give that melody to a low clarinet or the bassoon, or move the melody up an octave.

My quintet music (some of it free) is available at http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/raythompson

Some of my classical music arrangemets (using natural horn):

W A Mozart

Divertimento no 8 K213

Divertimento no 14 in Bb K270

My own composition, written in the classical style:

Divertimento no.1 in Eb

Other classical arrangements

Gounod

Petit Symphonie (originally for nonet)

Grieg

Peer Gynt suite no 1

Pachelbel

Canon in D
(Also available for clarinet quintet)
(I have tried to avoid the breathing difficulties in transcribing this piece from strings to wind by dovetailing the melody between the instruments, as well as moving the repetitive base line)